Free Republic

Dear Past Your Eyes, Before he was driven out of town on corruption charges, they used to call Tom DeLay "the Hammer." Well, lo and behold, it turns out the Hammer has a sensitive side -- and we've apparently hurt his feelings. Not long ago, I emailed to alert you that DeLay and other hard-right reactionaries had formed the Coalition for a Conservative Majority with plans to put "boots on the ground" in all 50 states to combat the "liberal agenda." In DeLay's twisted view, my telling the truth about him and his plans is practicing "the politics of personal...

Man accused of using hammer to rob restaurant ALPINE TOWNSHIP, Mich. -- A Grand Rapids man has been charged with armed robbery. Police say the weapon was a hammer. Gordon Leathers, 51, was arrested shortly after the robbery of a Subway sandwich shop, which happened about 8 p.m. Sunday. His preliminary hearing is set for January 16. The Kent County Jail's Web site showed Leathers had not posted a $20,000 bond as of Tuesday. The site did not indicate whether he had a lawyer. Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten...

'Cult British film company Hammer is to broadcast its latest horror venture on social networking site MySpace. Beyond the Rave, described as Hammer's first horror movie in 30 years, will be shown as 20 'webisodes' in spring 2008 before being released in full on DVD. It is billed as a vampire story set in the UK's underground rave scene. "This is a bold venture creating horror for the 21st century through a variety of technologies," said Simon Oakes of Hammer Film Productions. Sadie Frost, Ray Winstone's daughter Lois and horror veteran Ingrid Pitt feature in the cast.'

FLINT, Mich. (AP) - A 21-year-old Flint-area man has received a prison sentence of at least 5 1/2 years for a hammer attack on an exotic dancer. Austin Schmidt earlier pleaded no contest in Genesee County Circuit Court to assault with intent to do great bodily harm. He'd originally been charged with attempted murder. Authorities say Schmidt and Abbie VanAmburg smoked marijuana and were in his car last year when he told her to close her eyes so he could give her a Sweetest Day gift.

FORWARD OPERATING BASE SUMMERALL — 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division troops recently completed their first major offensive operation in the Salah Ad-Din province, since their arrival in theater in early October. Operation Bulldog Hammer, part of the larger Operation Iron Hammer, was designed to stifle al Qaida insurgents in cities like Bayji and Suniyah and to promote the continuing reconciliation effort here. Various elements of the storied "Bastogne" Brigade along with their counterparts from the 4th Iraqi Army Division and Iraqi Police, conducted a series of simultaneous, combined operations, to disrupt terrorist activities in the largely Sunni area...

Fear not, fellow Americans! In these dark days of war, pestilence and Paris Hilton, a new hero has arisen. She is none other than 75-year-old Mona "The Hammer" Shaw, who took the aforementioned implement to her local Comcast office in Manassas to settle a score, and boy, did she! This was after the company had scheduled installation of its much ballyhooed "Triple Play" service, which combines phone, cable and Internet services, in Shaw's brick home in nearby Bristow. But Shaw said they failed to show up on the appointed day, Monday, Aug. 13. They came two days later but left...

Mona Shaw had heard and seen enough from Comcast, her local cable television provider. After repeated attempts to change her phone service from Verizon to Comcast's Triple Play during a week in August, the 75-year-old Bristow resident with a heart condition took out her frustrations at the Manassas payment center on Center Street. Shaw was arrested for disorderly conduct after she took a hammer to several items in the office - all the while saying, "Have I got your attention now?" While Shaw's actions Aug. 20 were extreme, the inability of the cable company to finish the job they started...

Mark Finklestein had some lovely things to say about the main man's appearance on the Today Show this morning. See his comments and the interview recap below, It's rare to see a leading MSM light directly confronted over the liberal media's bias. But it happened in spades this morning as Tom DeLay (R-Texas) called out Matt Lauer on the MSM's double-standard in handling Republican, versus Democrat, scandals. Video (3:29) : Real and Windows, plus MP3 audio. [links below] The "Today" co-anchor opened his interview of the former Republican congressman and Majority Leader with a laundry-list of GOP scandals. MATT LAUER:...

Carjacking Attempt by 11-Year-Old DEARBORN HEIGHTS, Mich. (AP) - An 11-year-old Detroit boy was charged Friday with wielding a hammer as he tried to steal a car from a man in a supermarket parking lot. The boy, one month shy of his 12th birthday, was charged with attempted carjacking and felonious assault. The man told police the boy approached him about 8 a.m. Thursday and demanded the keys to the man's car while the boy gestured with the hammer. The man refused and called police, who went to the parking lot in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn Heights and arrested...

In New Letter, Bill Clinton's Lawyers Say Iger Assured Them Of "Appropriate Edits" And Hammer Film As "Disgraceful"By Greg Sargent After watching the first installment of "The Path to 9/11," Bill Clinton's lawyers have written another blistering letter to Disney chief Robert Iger. In the letter -- which we've obtained -- Clinton lawyers Bruce Lindsey and Douglas Band write that they actually spoke to Iger twice and that Iger assured them that he was "personally taking the responsibility to ensure that appropriate edits to the film would be made." But, the lawyers add: "Having now seen the first night of...

DeLay suggests he might not retireFri Jul 7, 9:10 PM ET Former House Majority leader Tom Delay walks out of the Cannon House Office Building on Capitol Hill, June 9, 2006. Delay's name must stay on a Texas ballot in upcoming congressional elections, despite his decision to withdraw from the race, a U.S. court judge in Austin, Texas, ruled on Thursday. (Evan Sisley/Reuters) SUGAR LAND, Texas - Former U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay suggested Friday that he may not be ready for retirement just yet, a day after a federal judge ruled that his name must remain on the November ballot...

The great Anthony of Padua has a universal appeal in the Catholic Church (he is truly a "catholic" saint). His statue can be found in churches the world over. He is most famous as the patron of lost articles. God knows how many times I've invoked his intercession in that area. But he has earned another title for his gift of converting the "sheep who had wandered" with his preaching - malleus haereticorum - or "the hammer of heretics." While he is known for being a saint of the Italian city of Padua, St. Anthony was actually from Portugal, and...

John Lennon once wrote that "All you need is love." If that's the case, former presidential candidate Al Gore is a happy man. He is in the middle of a media lovefest celebrating his work, his career - even his efforts as actor, author, dancer and comedian. The former vice president has both a movie and a book about global warming debuting under the title "An Inconvenient Truth." He has gone from media darling to "the summer's most unlikely movie star," as NBC's Katie Couric called him in a May 24 interview. Gore, who Couric also called "funny, vulnerable, disarming,...

Colbert Cracks the Story on Real Motivations Behind the Movie (from Defend Delay newsletter) Hollywood liberal and Michael Moore wannabe Robert Greenwald (known for his attacks on Wal-Mart and Fox News) crashed and burned on Comedy Central's The Colbert Report (watch it as http://www.defenddelay.com) when promoting his new attack on Tom Delay.

AUSTIN - The state's highest criminal court has agreed to hear Tom DeLay's latest request for a quick resolution to money laundering charges that forced him to give up his leadership post in the U.S. House, his spokesman said Tuesday. The all-Republican Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that both sides have a week to submit arguments, DeLay spokesman Kevin Madden said in an e-mail. DeLay's attorneys asked the court either to dismiss money laundering charges or to order a lower court to try him immediately.

They don't have list of candidates at the heart of the laundering case, just a 'similar' one AUSTIN - Travis County prosecutors admitted Friday they lack physical proof of a list of Republican candidates that is at the heart of money-laundering indictments against U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay and two of his associates. The list is key to prosecutors being able to prove that corporate money that could not be legally spent on Texas candidates was specifically exchanged at the national level for donations that legally could be spent on Republican candidates for the Texas House. Indictments against DeLay, Jim Ellis...

What do you get the Muscovite who has everything? A million-dollar pen? A new head of hair? An island? A suit made, literally, of money? The excesses of Russia's super-rich went on display this weekend when a "millionaire's fair" opened on the outskirts of Moscow, catering to the ostentatious tastes of the city's 88,000 dollar millionaires and 33 billionaires. An estimated 7,000 ordinary Muscovites a day paid £20 to get a glimpse of the eccentric lifestyles of the minority who are drowning in oil money. On show were the trappings of the immodest: a helicopter, a Lamborghini, a diamond ring...

42-year-old man is accused of striking his mother with a hammer at a North Wabash residence early Sunday, Wichita police said. The 60-year-old woman was taken in critical condition to Via Christi Regional Medical Center-St. Francis Campus, police said. An update on her condition wasn't available.

Living in Minnesota, I'm no longer surprised at the punishments be handed out in the courts. Today's news is that Clarence Dunn Sr. was found guilty of killing his girlfriend with a hammer. For murdering her, this formerly violent felon, Clarence received a 25.5 year sentence and could get out in 17 years. The judges and legislators have learned nothing. The good citizens of tired of the recolving door in the prisons that continues to release violent people. This girl would be alive today if there was justice in the courts. That's my opinion.

PANAMA CITY, Fla. -- A Florida sports fan has been sentenced to death for killing his wife after sex. Christoper Offord got angry because his wife wanted to cuddle after they had sex -- but he wanted to watch sports on television. She died after being struck dozens of times with a claw hammer. Offord later confessed to a bartender at a sports bar, and eventually pleaded guilty to first-degree murder. In imposing the death sentence, the judge said the brutality of the crime outweighed any of the defendant's possible mental problems. Offord did not speak in court, but admitted...

State Sen. Carlos Cisneros' wife spent Monday night behind bars for allegedly attacking her husband with a hammer after finding him with another woman. Patsy Cisneros, 50, was released on an unsecured appearance bond Tuesday morning. She faces charges of aggravated battery against a household member, criminal trespass and two counts of criminal damage to property. She is scheduled to be arraigned in Taos County Magistrate Court this morning. Contacted at her Questa home Tuesday afternoon, Patsy Cisneros admitted to striking her husband over the head with a hammer. And, she added, she doesn't regret it. "It was for a...

“Fan Appreciation Night” set for April 16 Recognizing the loyal and tremendous support they have received this season, the Atlanta Hawks players, coaches and organization will extend special “thanks and appreciation” this Saturday night (April 16) when Fan Appreciation Night activities are held at Philips Arena. Tipoff for the game against the Chicago Bulls is set for 7:00 pm (doors open at 6:00) and tickets are still available by visiting www.hawks.com or calling (404) 827-DUNK. Highlighting the evening’s activities is a postgame concert by Grammy Award-winning and multi-platinum selling musical artist MC Hammer (presented by Bud Light). Prior to the...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - A political committee advancing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's agenda denied sending voter information overseas Tuesday as a legislative committee investigating the alleged outsourcing said such a move could jeopardize privacy and lead to identity theft. Chairmen for Citizens to Save California, which is collecting signatures to put the Republican governor's initiatives on the ballot, misspoke last week when they said a subcontractor sent some of the work to a firm in India, a spokesman said. "Come up with any phrase you want to," said Reed Dickens, a spokesman for the group. "No information, no data has gone to...

TALLAHASSEE — The pistol-packing grandma about to be inducted into the Florida Women's Hall of Fame is the most controversial appointment since its inception 22 years ago. Why? Because Marion Hammer, a squat senior citizen with a soft Southern twang, was the first — and only — female president of the National Rifle Association. Gun control advocates and women's rights groups are outraged at the selection of Hammer, one of three women Gov. Jeb Bush tapped this year to join writer Zora Neale Hurston, tennis star Chris Evert, former state Education Commissioner Betty Castor and Lt. Gov. Toni Jennings among...

I am starting a grammar thread at the behest of Xenalyte and TheMom. Post your most irritating pet peeves of grammar or usage here.

On August 5, 2004, speaking to about 7,000 minority journalists at the "Unity 2004: Journalists of Color Conference", John Kerry reportedly said "I believe I can fight a more effective, more thoughtful, more strategic, more proactive, more sensitive war on terror" than President Bush. While briefly reported by USA Today, and The Atlanta Journal Constitution, it was largely ignored by the press at the time the comment was made. John Tierney's commentary in The New York Times "Political Points" did award Kerry the "Kumbaya Prize" for the week based on the comment. (Kumbaya Prize, Runner-Up: Teresa Heinz Kerry, for telling...

Planet in Peril is the poet’s lament on the frantic stockpiling of nuclear weapons imperilling all life on this planet of ours. Unlike modern day Neros who are seen fluting with sadistic ecstasy when all-engulfing flames are threatening to turn this only habitat of ours into a burning inferno, the poet’s soul weeps in mournful numbers when he reflects over the impending disaster.

ATHENS, August 22 - Adrian ANNUS (HUN) won the final of the men's hammer throw with 83.19m ahead of Koji MUROFUSHI (JPN), who recorded 82.91m. The pair were the only ones to break the 80m barrier. The 2003 IAAF World Champion Ivan TIKHON (BLR) took the bronze on his fifth attempt with 79.81m. The event had no other leader than ANNUS from the beginning to the end. The Hungarian opened his series with a throw of 80.53m before improving his result twice. He recorded his best throw in the third round. ANNUS was never really challenged but MUROFUSHI had a...

LONDON, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Police are investigating whether a serial hammer killer is targeting women in London after a French woman was bludgeoned to death in circumstances similar to other attacks. Emilie Delagrange, 22, was found with a serious head injury lying near a cricket pitch in the southwest suburb of Twickenham on Thursday night. She died shortly afterwards. The attack bore similarities to three other assaults in the neighbourhood in the past two years, all of which left female victims with severe head injuries. A London police spokeswoman said the Delagrange investigation was being helped by officers from...

ATHENS (Reuters) - Former ballerina turned hammer-thrower Shirley Webb has slammed British Olympic training facilities in Cyprus after being reduced to throwing into a field from a road junction.

The tabby cat was adopted by the brigade's Team Hammer after he was born last fall at a base in Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad. The soldiers, who named Hammer after their team, would tuck him under their body armor during artillery attacks. Hammer would catch mice in the mess hall — that earned him a promotion to private first-class — and help soldiers beat the blues. "He was a stress therapist," Rick Bousfield said. "The guys would come back in tired and stressed. Hammer would come back and bug the heck out of you. He wiped away some...

FBI Suspected McVeigh Link to Robbers JOHN SOLOMON Associated Press WASHINGTON - The FBI believed Timothy McVeigh tried to recruit additional help in the days before the deadly 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and gathered evidence that white supremacist bank robbers may have become involved, according to government documents never introduced at McVeigh's trial. The retired FBI chief of the Oklahoma City investigation, Dan Defenbaugh, said he was unaware of some evidence obtained by The Associated Press and that the investigation should be reopened to determine whether the robbery gang was linked to McVeigh. The evidence never shared with Defenbaugh's investigators...

PA - A 17-year-old Bucks county student has been charged as an adult for a hammer attack on a teacher and a fellow student. The alleged attack happened two weeks ago at Truman High Dchool in Bristol township. Police say Joshua Lynch got into a fight with another student and struck the student with a claw hammer. When two teachers intervened, Lynch allegedly struck one with the hammer and bit another. He is being held at Bucks County Prison on $75,000 bail.

SAN FRANCISCO, April 24 (Reuters) - Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:INTC) is developing new emulation software designed to speed the way its Itanium processor runs certain applications on server computers, an Intel spokeswoman said on Thursday. Intel has spent heavily to develop the Itanium chip in order to meet the needs of faster and more powerful software. The microchip allows servers to run both 32-bit applications, which crunch 32 bits of data at a time and comprise most of the software in use today, and newer 64-bit applications, which are faster because they process more bits of data at a time. However,...

ASSEMBLY AREA HAMMER, Northern Kuwait - Mobilization for war at US military camps in northern Kuwait, just south of the Iraqi border, has begun. The frequency of US war planes flying over the border into Iraq's southern no-fly zone has risen significantly since the weekend - with the sound of low-flying jets becoming routine. Crews have removed depleted uranium ammunition from containers and are loading it into Abrams tanks. Ammunition tipped with depleted uranium is able to more effectively pierce the armor on enemy tanks. US troops have broken the seals on the bags containing suits designed to protect them...

ASSEMBLY AREA HAMMER, Kuwait, March 17 (Reuters) - Crewmen on U.S. tanks which rolled back into their camp in the northern Kuwaiti desert on Monday know the next time they leave the base, it may be for their first experience of combat. Military activity is increasing near Kuwait's border with Iraq, as U.S. troops and armour move into place ready for a war expected to start within days. The skies buzz with heavy-lift and attack helicopters and tank-busting aircraft. Soldiers have been told to prepare for imminent war. "Steel yourselves for combat," one U.S. Marine company commander, Captain Brian Collins,...

<p>House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Texas Republican, says he was at a party back in his home district in Houston a while back when a Frenchman approached him. "He started talking to me about Iraq, and it was obvious we weren't going to agree," Mr. DeLay said. "And I said, 'Wait a minute. Do you speak German?' "He looked at me kind of funny and said, 'No, I don't speak German.' "I said, 'You're welcome.' And he turned and walked off." Mr. DeLay told reporters Tuesday. "The point is that France and Germany are losing credibility by the day and losing status in the world," Mr. DeLay said. "They are undermining the credibility of the U.N. and now they are undermining the credibility of NATO. They are walking a very fine line that is very dangerous that could make the U.N. and NATO irrelevant."</p>

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. is once again delaying the shipment of a long-awaited microprocessor chip that is vital to its competition with Intel Corp., Monday's Wall Street Journal reported. The chip, part of a new family that has carried the code name Hammer, was originally expected to be available in personal computers at the end of 2002 or early in the first quarter of this year. In September, however, AMD reset the delivery date to late in the first quarter or early in the second period. Friday, AMD said PCs based on the chip, formally called the Athlon 64,...

Hammer to enter the fray next year at 3400+, and Barton to debut at 2800+AMD's partners in the OEM business have been briefed as to what clock speeds and buses the upcoming Clawhammer and Barton processor samples will debut at, The Inquirer reports. The Hammer itself is expected to ship at the end of Q1 next year. "Barton, apparently is to kick off at 2800+, will have, as we know a level two cache of 512K which could give a performance increase of nearly 10 per cent. The 266MHz front side bus will end with the 2600+, despite what...

Speed limits on P4 could open window for AMD Can Barton scale to high speeds fast? By Mike Magee in San Jose: Sunday 08 September 2002, 23:47 THE MOST RECENT roadmap we saw from the Intel Corporation warns motherboard makers that with the introduction of 3.06GHz Pentium 4 in Q4, the designers are creating a somewhat new die layout for the Northwood process. This new layout might well be related to some significant errata in the processor, which we reported a few weeks ago. But with the introduction of 512K cache "Barton" AMD XP chips, we think that Intel may...

WARRENSVILLE HEIGHTS, Ohio (AP) - A 16-year-old boy was in police custody Saturday, accused of bludgeoning another student with a hammer during a dispute over a video-game controller, authorities said. The attack occurred Thursday at Warrensville Heights High School. The victim, also 16, suffered a fractured skull and was taken to Hillcrest Hospital. The hospital on Saturday would not release the condition of the boy, who is in 9th grade. His accused attacker, an 11th-grader, could be charged with felony assault, police Detective Dennis Fossett said. He was being held in a juvenile detention center. Fossett said the 11th-grader told...

<p>It's in the air, big changes are afoot. Yeah, tech stocks remain in the toilet, but underdog companies and technologies are beginning to make significant inroads, and the established superpowers are feeling less secure every day. Is this news? Not really, because it's been happening slowly over time, and certainly many ET readers have been closely following and even promoting these changes. Big power shifts are underway. The signs have been subtle and cumulative, but the one that put me over the top was IBM's recent national TV ad pushing their enterprise Linux solutions in a big way (more fervently than any past IBM ads I can remember).</p>

AMD's new chip can help it gain on Intel--Barron's Last Updated: August 04, 2002 02:49 PM ET NEW YORK, Aug 4 (Reuters) - Advanced Micro Devices Inc. AMD.N is hailed as having the "next big thing" with its upcoming eighth-generation microprocessor, and this could make the depressed stock a long-term winner, Barron's said. The Aug. 5 edition of the Wall Street financial weekly cites Fred Hick, publisher of the newsletter High-Tech Strategist, as saying AMD's next line of microprocessors, code-named Hammer, can give AMD a multiyear lead on arch-rival Intel Corp. INTC.O . AMD's edge could lie in the move...

AMD confirms IBM DB2 Hammer support Corporate migration easier, says IBM By Mike Magee: Tuesday 30 July 2002, 20:58 IBM'S DB2 DATABASE for Linux will be supported on AMD's Opteron (Hammer) processors, confirming benchmarks posted on c't magazine a few weeks back. AMD confirmed the story in a release which said a DB2 database using SuSE Linux was successfully ported to X86-64 technology in just a few days. The news is good for AMD and indicates positiive application software support for its Opteron servers, due to be launched next year. The chip firm said that using X86-64 architecture will mean...

Linus Torvalds prays Intel will adopt Yamhill And so adopt AMD's X86-64 By INQUIRER staff: Monday 29 July 2002, 11:26 A POSTING BY Linus Torvalds on the LINUX KERNEL newsgroup yesterday has him praying that Intel will adopt its secret "Yamhill" project and turn to the ways of X86-64 righteousness. Torvalds, who had a key part to play in Transmeta's fortunes at startup, says in the post that Linux developers are "generally praying that AMD's X86-64 succeeds in the market." That, he says, would force Intel to make Yamhill its standard 64-bit platform and allow for improvements in the Linux...

Column Heigh-Ho Celeron! By Andrew Busigin: Thursday 11 July 2002, 19:14 INTEL'S LATEST developments around future Celeron performance make for an interest study in marketing. It appears that once again, Intel Marketing folks are steering the engineering team, and it shouldn't surprise anyone, since the Celeron has always been a marketing phenomenon more than an engineering product. See Intel to shift P4 Celerons to Northwood core History Lesson The origin of the Celeron, for those of you more recently come to the party, was a marketing coup for Intel, whereby they managed to create an artificial segmentation of their CPU...

CYNTHIA McKINNEY IS AN AMERICAN HERO!My Opinion on the Way You are Handling the McKinney Case by Paul Walker I would appreciate it very much if you would cease the politically-motivated dirt-digging and attacks on Ms McKinney's character and instead do an objective jounalistic investigation into the claims that she has put forward. No matter what her motives may be, the facts are the facts. Fact: Carlyle Group directly benefits from an eternal Orwellian war against the "Evil Ones".Fact: The bin Ladins and the Bushes have been in bed finacially raking in hundreds of millions together on big oil,...